Numb
by tayraystar
Summary: Artemis was dead. But how could she be dead if he could see her standing there, smiling up at him? Traught one-shot.


**Author's Note:** Just a little backstory. M'gann messed up Kaldur's mind pretty badly, and his father found him, practically brain dead. But slowly, he rebuilt his son, putting in him the beliefs that the Light was right. The Justice League were tainting the Light's world, so they had to be eliminated. Now fully recovered, Kaldur set out to rid the world of their beloved heroes, believing the Light will better the world. Slowly, things turned to a full-scale war with the Light against the League (with the small Team of heroes along side them).

Nightwing's eyes widened as he felt a sudden chill spread through his body. Everything went still—the fighting around him, the yells and screams of the dying, the maniac laughter from the villains—it was all drowned out in a heavy silence. The world seemed to have paused, and as Nightwing looked down, he saw something silver shining on his stomach. Funny, he thought, he could have sworn that was in Kaldur's hand a few seconds ago.

Looking back up at Kaldur's face, he sees his eyes—dull and lifeless, and it reminds him of when he found Artemis lying dead in the warehouse a few weeks back, lying in a puddle of blood. Her eyes had been wide and unseeing.

Then he felt it. An odd feeling, a pulsing heat and a chilly cold that seems to have mixed together to create a pain so blinding he feels himself stumble, the silver object now dripping red, and he falls to his knees. It's then he realises that Kaldur has stabbed him in the stomach. And he was bleeding.

He's unaware of someone calling his name, as his hands close around the handle of the knife, and he just wants to get it out. But there's a part of him, a rational part that has been trained to handle these situations, screaming at him to leave it. If he pulls it out, he'll bleed to death. But he's numb, goosebumps moving across his skin in waves, and he just wants to remove the object causing his pain. His grip tightens on the handle, and he tugs.

Suddenly his jaw drops, and air is moving from his lips—a high pitched scream rips up his throat and into the night air, and Nightwing see's red and black spots in his vision as he pitches forward, crumbling to the ground and writhing in agony. All he knows is pain, hurt and blood and broken pain.

"Dick!" A flicker of recognition. He knows this voice. It's a girl—a girl is calling out to him—and as he opens his eyes, he no longer sees the muddy ground of the field.

The pain, it's all gone, and as he looks down, so is the blood. The knife has disappeared. His Nightwing suit has been replaced with a tight grey singlet and black workout pants, and he glances around, confused.

"Get off your ass, Grayson. Come on, I know you can do better than that." Dick looks up, eyes wide, into the expectant face of Artemis.

His heart stops beating, and he gets to his feet so quickly it makes him dizzy. "Artemis?"

Her playful smile drops. "What?"

"Artemis." He breaths, closing the gap between them and pulling her into a hug. She goes completely stiff, and pats him twice on the back, before pushing him away to give him a confused look.

"Did I give you a concussion?" She holds up a hand, all but two fingers curled inwards. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two." Nightwing answers automatically, and his whole face has lit up with a smile. "I've missed you."

"Missed me? You were only on the ground for a few seconds, Dick. Are you sure you're alright?" She rests a hand on his forehead, and her eyes widen.

"Oh, geez, Dick. You're burning up."

"I am?" He didn't feel hot. As Artemis removed her hand, he replaced it with his own, and sure enough, his forehead was rather hot. "Oh. I am."

"You need to sit down." Grabbing his elbow, she led him over to a wooden bench and got him to sit down. "I'll go get your water bottle." She sounded generally concerned, and Dick felt like he had butterflies in his stomach.

As she disappeared around the corner, Dick lay down on the bench, facing towards the ceiling. He was beginning to feel sick, and there was this weird tingling sensation in his lower abdomen. He closes his eyes, resting an arm across his forehead.

He hears her footsteps, coming closer, and then stopping beside him. Something cool touches his lips, and water dribbles into his mouth.

"Drink it." He swallows, and she pulls the bottle away. "How do you feel?"

Removing his arm from over his face, he opens his eyes and looks up at her. Her blonde hair frames her face, the ponytail having come loose and strands of hair sticking out at odd directions.

"Okay." He goes to sit up, but a sharp stab of pain goes up his spine and he groans, falling back onto the bench. He hears Artemis gasp, but his eyes are closed, and there is so much pain.

"You're bleeding!" He feels her hands on his skin as she pulls up the fabric of his singlet to reveal a large wound, a deep line across his lower stomach, blood pouring out of the wound like water. So much blood.

"How did…" But her voice is fading away, and Dick blinks, but all he can see is black. The darkness closes in around him, pushing into him, making him feel claustrophobic—which he thinks is odd, because that's never happened before.

He blinks once more, and finds himself staring into Artemis's face again. She's wearing her hero uniform, and she looks panicked.

"You seem distraught." He hears himself saying, and he sounds younger, and it confuses him. This scene seems familiar. He could almost predict what Artemis would say next.

"M'gann is dying. We have no powers and I'm down to my last arrow. Of course I'm distraught!"

It seems automatic when he replies: "Well get traught, or get dead!"

Nightwing hasn't played around with words for years. Back when he was Robin, he'd done it all the time. And then it clicked. He was remembering when the Reds unfiltrated the mountain.

He looked around. She's talking again.

"How can you be so calm?"

He knows how the memory goes. But something is stopping him from replying. A feeling of foreboding, as if something was about to go terribly wrong.

"Do you feel that?" His voice is still odd to him. High pitched, young, completely Robin. He hadn't felt like Robin for years.

"I feel like everything is about to fall apart, our friends are going to die, we're going to die—"

"Shh."

Artemis leans back slightly. "What?"

"Just shh."

Nightwing—now Robin—cocks his head to the side slightly, and strains to hear something. It starts off as a low humming at first, but gradually, it gets louder and louder.

"Do you not hear that?" He asks Artemis.

She squints at him, confused, but doesn't say anything.

Pressing his lips together, the him gets louder, and finally, he realises it's not a hum at all. It's multiple screams, running together to came a continuous sound. The screams get louder, and louder, and Robin claps his hands over his ears.

"Make it stop!"

"What? Make what stop?" Artemis's panicked voice is drowned out by the screaming, and underneath him, blood drips down onto his shoe.

"Nightwing! Nightwing, get up!"

There's a flash of red in his vision, but it's blurred, his eyes unable to focus.

"Come on, dude, snap out of it. We need to get you out of here!"

Nightwing moans, and despite the numbness of his body, he can feel the pain from his stab wound. A throbbing, sharp pain, burning through his body like a hot iron.

He just doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what went wrong. How the plan failed. How Kaldur turned. How they ended up here, at this massacre, and how he got wounded. His mind was no longer working, it was slow and sluggish, his thoughts made no sense to him.

"Artemis." He heard himself whisper. "We have to save Artemis."

And then he remembered, Artemis was dead. But how could she be dead if he could see her standing there, smiling up at him?

"Artemis isn't here, Nightwing. Come on, we have to go."

All he could see was her smile, and he felt her hand on his cheek.

"I'll be right back."

"You promise?" Nightwing smiles, and she smirks back.

"God, Dick, I promise." She leans up and kisses his cheek. "Does that make you feel better?"

He purses his lips, trying to stop smiling. "I don't know…"

She sighs, but it isn't a sigh of irritation. She wraps an arm around his neck, and slowly, brings her lips to his.

There's a pressure on his chest, and he's not sure if it's his heart or something else, and as he wraps his arms around her waist and closes his eyes, he can hear another voice.

"Open you eyes, Dick! Don't go to sleep! You hear me? You need to stay awake!"

Dick pulls back from the kiss, and Artemis looks sad. "I'll be right back. It'll be like I never left." She picks up her bow and leaves, the front door of their apartment closing behind her with a soft click.

The next night, he had found her dead.

His eyes open and he sees green. A pair of green eyes stare down at him, and smeared on the person's brow is blood, drying to a crisp. Artemis didn't have green eyes. And then he hears Wally's voice, and he connects the two together.

"Oh, dude, I was worried there. Thought you'd gone." He's joking, Nightwing thought, but his eyes are hard and serious. Dick smiles, and it feels clumsy, as if it wasn't actually him smiling.

"I'm tired."

"Oh no, you're not going to sleep. You need to stay awake." His head jolts side to side, and he can feel the warmth of Wally's hands on his face. The jolting stops, but the world is still spinning, and Dick closes his eyes again.

"No, don't you dare—"

The rain is pouring down hard, and the wind keeps switching directions, pulling Dick's body in every direction. He pulls a hand over his head, pushing back his wet hair, only to have the wind push it back into his eyes.

"We're ready to move, Nightwing. On your mark."

Megan's voice says in his head, and he nods.

"Move in."

Crouched low to the ground, he moves in closer to the warehouse. The warehouse's walls are covered with rust, and he can hear it creaking, the beams straining against the strong wind. It's completely dark, he can't even see the moon above him.

He spots a shadowy figure across from him, and Conner turns to look at him with a complete poker face. Nightwing knew they weren't happy about coming out in the rain, but he couldn't ignore this.

This was going to be big.

He pressed himself up against the warehouse wall beside the door, which was open and swinging in the wind. He was sure there was no one inside, but he had to be sure. He glanced in, and then he heard M'gann in his mind again, confirming that there was no one inside. But—wait. There was. Her mental voice cuts off, and Nighting grits his teeth and slowly walks inside.

He's shivering from the cold, but he ignores it as much as he can, scanning the large room. It's dark, the corners cloaked in shadow, and there are old machines covered in rust scattered around in odd places. He suspects this used to be a printing works of some kind. And an old one, too.

He's scanning the walls when he hears M'gann call out to him. "Nightwing…"

He reacts to her tone—cautious, if a little blank—and tenses. Slowly, he walks over to where she stands, She's looking down at something, but there's a machine blocking his view, so he doesn't see what she's look at until he's standing beside her.

What he sees makes all the colour drain from his face.

Artemis is lying on the ground, cold dull eyes staring up at him. She's lying in a pool of blood, and the red stands out against the black-stained ground.

M'gann looks up at him, and her face moves to one of sympathy. "Oh, Nightwing…"

"Don't." His voice echoes throughout the room, loud and commanding. He closes his eyes, forcing back the oncoming wave of despair, and lets out a breath. He opens them again. "We need to clean this up."

"But, Nightwing—"

"That's an order." Steel-faced, Nightwing turns and begins walking away. He wanted to collapse, he wanted to cry, he wanted to break down. But he couldn't. He couldn't do that. And it was only with force of will that he walked back out into the storm to contact the League, his voice showing none of his emotion. His hands shook as he pressed the communicator, and he could hear M'gann and Conner moving around inside.

He didn't know if he could face that again. He didn't know if he could bear to see Artemis like that.

Dick jolted awake as something sharp hit his cheek.

"Dick, stay awake! You can't sleep!" Wally's voice is a command, and Dick idly wonders when it was that his best friend took charge.

"But… Arte… Artemis…" His voice is faint and hoarse, but he can no longer feel the pain from the stab wound. He just needs to go to sleep, and everything will be okay. Maybe he could see Artemis again. But she won't look lifeless and pale. She'll be happy, full of life and fight.

His vision is once again full of red, and he squints up at Wally, focusing on one of his faded freckles. "Stay awake, Dick. We need you awake. _I_ need you awake! Come on, bro. Why don't you tell me a story? Do you remember when we first became friends, how I came around to your school so we could go get ice cream, and you already knew my favourite flavour, which was—huh. I can't remember what it was then. Wasn't it orange chocolate chip? I—"

Wally's words blurred together, swimming around in Dick's thoughts. He can't focus. His vision is blurring, and he opens his mouth to tell Wally that his favourite flavour at the time was in fact raspberry, not orange chocolate chip, but nothing makes it out but a wheeze and a violent cough that jerks his whole body. He can taste rust, bitter and warm, and he knows he can't do anything more.

Wally's shaking him again, but he can hardly feel it. The black is closing in around him, swallowing him whole, consuming his mind and his body.

_It'll be okay._

And as he finally closes his eyes, he can see Artemis's face, smiling up at him once again, leaning closer to press her lips to his.


End file.
